Gary Neville has criticised Jurgen Klopp after the Liverpool manager suggested their match against Tottenham be replayed.
The Reds surrendered their unbeaten start to the season but only after they were on the receiving end of several contentious refereeing decisions, including the unprecedented VAR catastrophe which saw Luis Diaz’s first half goal wrongly ruled out for offside.
The fall-out from the VAR failure in Saturday’s defeat – in which officials mistakenly cancelled the Colombia international’s strike, which would have put his side 1-0 ahead, due to a misunderstanding of the on-field decision – is still being felt.
The Premier Game Match Officials Ltd released the audio conversation between officials and the VAR after a request from Liverpool, but Klopp said that had made little difference to their thinking.
‘The audio didn’t change it at all. It is an obvious mistake,’ said Klopp at his pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s game against Union Saint-Gilloise. ‘I think there should be solutions for that. I think the outcome should be a replay.
‘The argument against that would be it opens the gates. It is unprecedented, it has not happened before.
‘I’m used to wrong and difficult decisions, but something like this never happened and so that is why I think a replay is the right thing to do.’
In the immediate aftermath of Saturday’s controversy, Neville had praised Klopp and Liverpool for the measured way in which they had responded to the controversy.
An initial statement appeared to have made clear that the Merseyside club’s primary intention was to ensure an open and transparent investigation be conducted, while widespread reports claimed nobody of a Liverpool persuasion was considering the possibility of a replay.
Klopp’s surprise comments, however, blew that theory out of the water, much to Neville’s astonishment.
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He wrote on X: ‘Can’t believe how Liverpool have grabbed defeat from victory in their handling of this! They were wronged by a shocking mistake. End of!’
Asked why he had changed his stance following Klopp’s request, Neville added: ‘Because of Liverpool’s statement escalating it, mentioning integrity and exploring options.
‘Now we’ve seen they want a replay! That’s madness.’
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